"It is certain that any wild wish or vain imagination never takes such firm possession of the mind, as when it is found empty and unoccupied."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)


Work Title
Date
Tuesday, January 8, 1751
Metaphor
"It is certain that any wild wish or vain imagination never takes such firm possession of the mind, as when it is found empty and unoccupied."
Metaphor in Context
It is certain that any wild wish or vain imagination never takes such firm possession of the mind, as when it is found empty and unoccupied. The old peripatetick principle, that Nature abhors a vacuum, may be properly applied to the intellect, which will embrace any thing, however absurd or criminal, rather than be wholly without an object. Perhaps every man may date the predominance of those desires that disturb his life and contaminate his conscience, from some unhappy hour when too much leisure exposed him to their incursions; for he has lived with little observation either on himself or others, who does not know that to be idle is to be vicious.
(p. 187)
Categories
Provenance
Searching in UVa E-Text Center
Citation
Originally published semiweekly in 208 folio numbers: London: John Payne and J. Bouquet, 1750-1752. At least 46 entries in ESTC (1750, 1751, 1752, 1756, 1761, 1763, 1767, 1771, 1772, 1776, 1779, 1781, 1783, 1784, 1785, 1789, 1791, 1793, 1794, 1795, 1796, 1798, 1799, 1800).

Text from Samuel Johnson, Works of Samuel Johnson (Troy, NY: Pafraets Book Company, 1903). Prepared by Charles Keller for UVa E-Text Center, 1995. <Link to UVa E-Text Center>
Date of Entry
05/26/2011

The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.